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Dark Secret
“Gripping. Impossible to put down.”— Jack McDevitt “Leave it to Edward M. Lerner to take a notion, run with it, squeeze every ramification out of it, and put it altogether in an irresistible page-turner. Dark Secret is a crackerjack novel—hard science fiction at its best.”— Robert J. Sawyer When the experimental ship Clermont is urgently recalled from a long-range test flight, neither Dana McElwain nor Blake Westford, its captain and crew, imagines that they are about to embark on a much more urgent voyage—or that this new mission will determine the fate of the human race. A gamma-ray burst—the deadly beam of radiation spawned seven thousand years earlier in the death throes of doomed neutron stars—is about to wipe the Solar System clean of all life. Only the Clermont’s prototype Dark Energy Drive might carry anyone, and any of humanity’s legacy, to safety before that extinction. And then what? Where beyond the Solar System is safe? What if the price of survival is to become less … human? “Dark Secret is a unique tale of catastrophe and survival on multiple levels, gripping and harrowing yet ultimately inspiring. Lerner shows what it might really be like to be forced from an out-of-control frying pan into a far worse fire, and how humanity might endure even if what the refugees bring with them is worse than what they find.”— Stanley Schmidt
- GenresScience Fiction
290 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 7, 2016
15 people are currently reading
52 people want to read
About the author
Edward M. Lerner
120 books57 followersI'm a physicist and computer scientist (among other things). After thirty years in industry, working at every level from individual technical contributor to senior vice president, I now write full-time. Mostly I write science fiction and techno-thrillers, now and again throwing in a straight science or technology article.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
October 24, 2016
An old scenario that has been trending again in science fiction in recent years - humanity journeying to the stars in search of a new Eden - is given a whirl by Lerner, a frequent contributor to the classic hard SF digest Analog (where this novel was first serialized).
Lerner devises an interesting, science-based scenario to hang his story on: seven thousand years ago, two neutron stars collided and sent a gamma-ray burst our way. When Dark Secret begins, the resulting particle storm is guaranteed to wipe out all life in the solar system, and only a single, experimental craft holding a handful of survivors and some frozen embryos is capable of making it clear of the event and traveling to a system with a habitable world.
The first half of Dark Secret worked well enough for me. Despite being populated by bland stock characters with obvious cut-and-dry motives, it did what old-fashioned hard SF does best - provide a gripping narrative that balances the thrill of scientific discovery with suspenseful problem solving and obstacle tackling.
Sadly, the second half of the novel sidelines the more interesting explorations of the problems humans might face in trying to inhabit an alien world, instead pitting its heroes against its boorish villain's nefarious attempts at social engineering, and the novel is dragged down into mediocrity as a result.
Lerner devises an interesting, science-based scenario to hang his story on: seven thousand years ago, two neutron stars collided and sent a gamma-ray burst our way. When Dark Secret begins, the resulting particle storm is guaranteed to wipe out all life in the solar system, and only a single, experimental craft holding a handful of survivors and some frozen embryos is capable of making it clear of the event and traveling to a system with a habitable world.
The first half of Dark Secret worked well enough for me. Despite being populated by bland stock characters with obvious cut-and-dry motives, it did what old-fashioned hard SF does best - provide a gripping narrative that balances the thrill of scientific discovery with suspenseful problem solving and obstacle tackling.
Sadly, the second half of the novel sidelines the more interesting explorations of the problems humans might face in trying to inhabit an alien world, instead pitting its heroes against its boorish villain's nefarious attempts at social engineering, and the novel is dragged down into mediocrity as a result.
September 9, 2024
"Dark Secret" is an enjoyable new take on an old SF trope: what if the End of the World is nigh (here in the form of a nearby Gamma-ray Burster) -- and there's only time to send out a single Ark to preserve humanity? There are some clunks at the start, but the scientific backstory is nicely done and the speculations reasonable. And it's a tall tale well told. I had a good time reading it, and if you're in the mood for an old-fashioned Hard SF adventure, I think you will too. 3.6 stars.
2023 reread: What I said before. If anything, a bit better on my second read. Even if the strange ending leaves us hanging. Decent hard SF isn't that common. If that's your ideal, too, and you've missed this one, you're in for a treat.
2023 reread: What I said before. If anything, a bit better on my second read. Even if the strange ending leaves us hanging. Decent hard SF isn't that common. If that's your ideal, too, and you've missed this one, you're in for a treat.
January 31, 2021
I discovered this author a few years ago and I've devoured practically everything he's released since.
If you're familiar with his style, you will probably enjoy this.
I did too and I'd actually rank it 4.5 stars. It would earn 5 if not for the puzzling final page.
If you read the back cover, you already know what's going on.
Like most of his other works, this is based on an extrapolation from a real-world theory.
This one is the idea of a gamma-ray burst.
A scientist has discovered indications that the solar system will be inundated with deadly radiation within a short period of time. So a mission is thrown together to save as much as possible.
There are a lot of questions which are basically ignored.
How is it possible that this was discovered at the point it was, considering light-speed?
Why is it concealed rather than pouring resources and money into the construction of as many colony ships as possible? Why don't they shelter colonies on the far side of Jupiter, which is portrayed as accessible by this time and would surely be large enough to shield them until the burst is past? (This last one is the most puzzling to me.)
In any case, this is the story of survival in unlikely situations against impossible odds.
The crew of six is forced to flee far ahead of schedule in a lone vessel for the uncertain safety of the stars. They soon encounter a phenomenon which helps them but forces a 75-year delay and at least a thousand light-year detour. Against the odds, they find a world on which life can be sustained and settle there.
Years pass and they begin to raise a new generation from the embryos brought along. It is at this point that the other shoe drops, as it were. One member of the crew turns into a totalitarian dictator who wants to mold the next generation to serve them and shuts all but one loyal sycophant out. Years pass as the others attempt to find a way to restore balance before finally being forced into desperate action by the threat of global disasters which study of the world reveals could threaten them all.
In the end, all seems to be working out with humanity having established a foothold and peace restored. That's why the final page feels so weird to me that it just throws everything else off. I still enjoy the story, but was the author trying to set up a sequel that just hasn't come into existence or something? I felt very confused. I'd recommend it to those who've enjoyed the author's other novels and are willing to ignore an ambiguous finale.
If you're familiar with his style, you will probably enjoy this.
I did too and I'd actually rank it 4.5 stars. It would earn 5 if not for the puzzling final page.
If you read the back cover, you already know what's going on.
Like most of his other works, this is based on an extrapolation from a real-world theory.
This one is the idea of a gamma-ray burst.
A scientist has discovered indications that the solar system will be inundated with deadly radiation within a short period of time. So a mission is thrown together to save as much as possible.
There are a lot of questions which are basically ignored.
How is it possible that this was discovered at the point it was, considering light-speed?
Why is it concealed rather than pouring resources and money into the construction of as many colony ships as possible? Why don't they shelter colonies on the far side of Jupiter, which is portrayed as accessible by this time and would surely be large enough to shield them until the burst is past? (This last one is the most puzzling to me.)
In any case, this is the story of survival in unlikely situations against impossible odds.
The crew of six is forced to flee far ahead of schedule in a lone vessel for the uncertain safety of the stars. They soon encounter a phenomenon which helps them but forces a 75-year delay and at least a thousand light-year detour. Against the odds, they find a world on which life can be sustained and settle there.
Years pass and they begin to raise a new generation from the embryos brought along. It is at this point that the other shoe drops, as it were. One member of the crew turns into a totalitarian dictator who wants to mold the next generation to serve them and shuts all but one loyal sycophant out. Years pass as the others attempt to find a way to restore balance before finally being forced into desperate action by the threat of global disasters which study of the world reveals could threaten them all.
In the end, all seems to be working out with humanity having established a foothold and peace restored. That's why the final page feels so weird to me that it just throws everything else off. I still enjoy the story, but was the author trying to set up a sequel that just hasn't come into existence or something? I felt very confused. I'd recommend it to those who've enjoyed the author's other novels and are willing to ignore an ambiguous finale.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 9, 2016
Six adults, a cargo of embryos, and an artificial intelligence escape the destruction of the solar system by a Gamma-Ray Burst. There are echoes of Cixin Liu's trilogy - the imminent destruction of humanity, secret government plans, cold-sleep hibernation, with string theory allowing for variations in the speed of light. The planet they choose - which they name Dark - has higher gravity and less atmosphere than Earth and the party struggles to survive. While the science is well-crafted, the characters are less so, predictable with few flashes of personality. The exceptions are the villainess, Dr. Li Yeo, a psychologist/M.D., and her counter-balance, Rikki Westford, a science historian. Even so, their conflict is heavily choreographed. After a lengthy lead-in, the pace picks up mid-way through the novel, ratcheting up confrontations and dire set-backs. Dr. Yeo, intent on building a new civilization with one social order under her direction, orchestrates the group's acquiescence and proceeds with her hidden agenda. The ease with which she gains control is unsatisfying. The weakness of her sole confederate and the gullibility of the other four is not convincing. The society Yeo attempts to engineer is autocratic and heavily regimented causing the reader to wonder if the choice of ethnicity was intentional. Yeo's control relies on conditioning and fear and fails to account for natural human inquisitiveness, the desire to know and understand and to ask why. It is that wild variable that leads to her undoing. As a final touch, the author adds a twist more common to the short story form. Clever, but I felt it undermined the tale's ending.
February 1, 2017
Sometimes there's a character you love to hate, and other times there's a character that you just hate because they're so evil (or at least really messed up).
The antagonist in Dark Secret is definitely the latter.
Good SF book. I'd like to know with more certainty what transpired on Earth.
And the ending? A clue for a sequel, that does not bode well for our characters!
The antagonist in Dark Secret is definitely the latter.
Good SF book. I'd like to know with more certainty what transpired on Earth.
And the ending? A clue for a sequel, that does not bode well for our characters!
October 3, 2016
Nice take on the colonization trope, with some modern sensibilities. Had a dour tone which served to heighten the tension and give real power to the difficulty of such a venture. Recommended.
December 19, 2017
A mission to save humanity devolves into Brave New World. A very good hard science fiction story.
July 23, 2025
Very mixed feelings about this novel.
There were definitely things that I liked, specifically the beginning and the end. But there was a long stretch in the middle of the novel that began as boring, then turned outlandishly stupid for a long time.
Lerner almost redeemed himself with the third act… almost, but it didn’t come close to making up for the ridiculous parts of the novel.
First though, a quick synopsis of the novel so we can get into specifics (SPOILER ALERT!):
Act I
When a gamma‑ray burst will obliterate the Solar System, six adults and thousands of frozen embryos depart aboard the Clermont using an experimental Dark Energy Drive to escape extinction.
Act II
They travel across a cosmic string detour, enter cryostasis, and arrive decades later at a habitable planet. There they thaw, raise children from those embryos, and struggle to build society—while one crew member, Dr. Li Yeo, begins conditioning and brainwashing the children to enforce her social‑engineering agenda.
Act III
Eventually the other adults rebel, Dr. Yeo is exposed and overthrown, newborn society stabilizes—and humanity’s legacy survives, though the ambiguous final note hints at more trouble to come.
So far so good.
That outline makes it sound pretty good, actually. I think the problem comes with the execution.
1: Ridiculous Villains
Dr. Li, the villain, it’s so cartoonishly, outlandishly, mustache twirling evil that it’s almost comical. There is absolutely no character development at all, she’s just… Bad.
It seems like she’s obsessed with Plato, Thomas Hobbes and the Spartans, and she aims to build a society of obedient, little brainwashed robots, with herself as the Philosopher King.
There are a lot of references to philosophy and literature in the book, but I feel like Lerner picked them out of Wikipedia, rather than having any insight or understanding of them.
Her minion and sidekick, technical wizard Carlos, is equally repulsive and ridiculous. In order to make a villain interesting, seems to me like they should have some redeeming quality. There should be some rationale as to why they behave the way they behave. Not with these two. They are evil from the start, plotting and scheming from the beginning, no reason, no character development. They’re just… bad.
2: Lame Heroes
The good guys in the novel aren’t any better. One woman, Ricky, has no personality at all other than whining about wanting to have babies, and crying about the fact that the embryo children have been brainwashed to hate her.
Her husband, Blake, is even worse. He’s got no personality whatsoever. I think his name should’ve been Biff.
The other two, the captain Dana, and the genius navigator, Antonio, are better, but not by much. Antonio suffers from Asperger‘s syndrome, but he sounds more like he’s retarded. Dana is honest and courageous… But some of the decisions she makes are so spectacularly stupid it’s embarrassing.
3: Boring World Building
World building simply isn’t Lerner’s thing. At least not in this novel. It feels like he spent no time at all developing it. Then, when they arrive at their new home, the planet “Dark”, it is even more boring than the solar system they escaped was. It’s a desolate rock, gray, grim, dreary. Lifeless, snowy, land masses, and an ocean filled with bacteria and algae. Initially, I was hoping they would find alien technology, a hidden cave with crazy alien life in it, anything at all to break up the monotony and dreariness… But no such luck. The world remains steadfastly, boring to the end.
But the main problem for me remains the antagonist.
Seriously, Dr. Li was so outlandishly, so cartoonishly evil, her plan to create a pseudo spartan totalitarian society (for no reason other than she’s cartoonishly evil) was so ridiculous that by the last third of the novel I was pretty much hate reading it.
But then the third act came and it really was a fun ride. He balanced the action, the many elements and characters beautifully. I was actually into seeing how it would all turn out. Pretty much a page turner.
So I don’t know.
So much of the novel with dopey and amateurish (even though he’s not a bad writer), that ending, didn’t quite redeem it for me. There’s no getting over the lame characters and buffoonish antagonist, so two stars.
There were definitely things that I liked, specifically the beginning and the end. But there was a long stretch in the middle of the novel that began as boring, then turned outlandishly stupid for a long time.
Lerner almost redeemed himself with the third act… almost, but it didn’t come close to making up for the ridiculous parts of the novel.
First though, a quick synopsis of the novel so we can get into specifics (SPOILER ALERT!):
Act I
When a gamma‑ray burst will obliterate the Solar System, six adults and thousands of frozen embryos depart aboard the Clermont using an experimental Dark Energy Drive to escape extinction.
Act II
They travel across a cosmic string detour, enter cryostasis, and arrive decades later at a habitable planet. There they thaw, raise children from those embryos, and struggle to build society—while one crew member, Dr. Li Yeo, begins conditioning and brainwashing the children to enforce her social‑engineering agenda.
Act III
Eventually the other adults rebel, Dr. Yeo is exposed and overthrown, newborn society stabilizes—and humanity’s legacy survives, though the ambiguous final note hints at more trouble to come.
So far so good.
That outline makes it sound pretty good, actually. I think the problem comes with the execution.
1: Ridiculous Villains
Dr. Li, the villain, it’s so cartoonishly, outlandishly, mustache twirling evil that it’s almost comical. There is absolutely no character development at all, she’s just… Bad.
It seems like she’s obsessed with Plato, Thomas Hobbes and the Spartans, and she aims to build a society of obedient, little brainwashed robots, with herself as the Philosopher King.
There are a lot of references to philosophy and literature in the book, but I feel like Lerner picked them out of Wikipedia, rather than having any insight or understanding of them.
Her minion and sidekick, technical wizard Carlos, is equally repulsive and ridiculous. In order to make a villain interesting, seems to me like they should have some redeeming quality. There should be some rationale as to why they behave the way they behave. Not with these two. They are evil from the start, plotting and scheming from the beginning, no reason, no character development. They’re just… bad.
2: Lame Heroes
The good guys in the novel aren’t any better. One woman, Ricky, has no personality at all other than whining about wanting to have babies, and crying about the fact that the embryo children have been brainwashed to hate her.
Her husband, Blake, is even worse. He’s got no personality whatsoever. I think his name should’ve been Biff.
The other two, the captain Dana, and the genius navigator, Antonio, are better, but not by much. Antonio suffers from Asperger‘s syndrome, but he sounds more like he’s retarded. Dana is honest and courageous… But some of the decisions she makes are so spectacularly stupid it’s embarrassing.
3: Boring World Building
World building simply isn’t Lerner’s thing. At least not in this novel. It feels like he spent no time at all developing it. Then, when they arrive at their new home, the planet “Dark”, it is even more boring than the solar system they escaped was. It’s a desolate rock, gray, grim, dreary. Lifeless, snowy, land masses, and an ocean filled with bacteria and algae. Initially, I was hoping they would find alien technology, a hidden cave with crazy alien life in it, anything at all to break up the monotony and dreariness… But no such luck. The world remains steadfastly, boring to the end.
But the main problem for me remains the antagonist.
Seriously, Dr. Li was so outlandishly, so cartoonishly evil, her plan to create a pseudo spartan totalitarian society (for no reason other than she’s cartoonishly evil) was so ridiculous that by the last third of the novel I was pretty much hate reading it.
But then the third act came and it really was a fun ride. He balanced the action, the many elements and characters beautifully. I was actually into seeing how it would all turn out. Pretty much a page turner.
So I don’t know.
So much of the novel with dopey and amateurish (even though he’s not a bad writer), that ending, didn’t quite redeem it for me. There’s no getting over the lame characters and buffoonish antagonist, so two stars.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 5, 2017
Engaging stroll from ELE to hope
Dark Secret achieved low Earth orbit quickly...then slowed a bit to gather threads in hand. My interest briefly waned, but returned forcefully as the characters came to grips with the challenge of rebuilding humanity in a place far removed in distance and circumstance from our origins.
I haven't read much fiction in years, but found this a pleasant return. I recommend it. I will find and read the next book in the series.
Dark Secret achieved low Earth orbit quickly...then slowed a bit to gather threads in hand. My interest briefly waned, but returned forcefully as the characters came to grips with the challenge of rebuilding humanity in a place far removed in distance and circumstance from our origins.
I haven't read much fiction in years, but found this a pleasant return. I recommend it. I will find and read the next book in the series.
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